An Honor

I spend all of last week in Philadelphia, PA. Ten or so of us went from my church, The Upperroom. We had been reading a book by Shane Claiborne, entitled The Irresistible Revolution. He had also come three or four times to our church to speak, so we went to Philly and stayed with him and his roomates at the non-profit they run called The Simple Way.

Basically, Shane and his roomates live together in a couple of houses in one of the most underprivileged neighborhoods in Philly, called Kensington. They believe that to understand and love people, we need to be around them and not buffer ourselves against them, wherever they may be. Fully supporting themselves, they try to love God, live simply and share with their neighbors. They create murals where graffiti is, and grow gardens in abandoned lots. They try to make the neighborhood better for everyone, and try to show the people who live there that they are worthwile and do indeed have dignity.

I think that most people who go to stay with The Simple Way are from more privelidged areas, and typically do not have experience with poverty or people with crisis needs. As you know, I work in the inner-city of Minneapolis everyday at a foodshelf in the Phillip's Neighborhood. Nothing that I saw in Philly shocked me at all. So, why did I choose to spend a week in the inner-city of Philadelphia?

I've been working at my job for over two years now. I never sought out to work in inner-city ministry, but rather just fell into it. Needless to say, I wasn't excited to be working in an impoverished area. Life went on for a while, and I adapted to being here. But, I still took it very much for granted. My attitude was that I was sacrificing a lot to be there. I tried to find another job, but God was very much at work to keep me there.

As time went on, The Upperroom began to have a relationship with the folks at The Simple Way. As I heard Shane speak at church and read the book that he'd wrote, God began working in my heart to change how I thought. For the first time, I began to feel like it was a privilege, not a sacrifice, to be able to spend all day with people who haven't been dealt the best hand in life.

You see, when you come into a situation like this seeing it as a sacrifice of yours, you will always see the people that you're there to serve as broken, and as an "other" from yourself. But, if you come into the situation seeing it as a privilege, you begin to see people's humanity. You can finally begin to love the people around you, and gain a great joy.

It really is a honor to be able to help people who often times just can't see a way to help themselves, or to just be able to get to know and love them where they're at. Compassion is something that we should always be willing to learn more about. I'm glad to finally be able to say that I'm so grateful to God for placing me in the inner-city for however long He would have me.

"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'" -Matthew 25:40